There are many devices with and methods by which a food item may be prepared. Some of these devices and methods are directed to cooking a food through the use of an appliance in which a source of power and a supply mechanism is used to produce heat from internal heating elements. Other devices have no internal heating elements by which food may be cooked. These devices—for example, pots, pans, sheets, and molds and commonly known as cookware—are constructed for use within or on a source of heat in order to prepare a food item. Conventionally, cookware can transfer heat from an external heat source efficiently to the food item. Conventional cookware can be difficult to use. The cookware may retain heat and continue to cook the food even though the cookware is removed from the heat source leading to difficult to predict results and possible undercooking, or generally uneven consequences.
There are many other devices and methods by which a food item may be kept warm for a period of time. Some of these devices permit the food to be kept warm and served. To satisfy their function as service items, many of these devices are covered decorative containers having lids or domes. To permit the food to be kept warm for a longer period of time, certain food service devices includes a separate heating element or heat storage medium that is positioned within or adjacent to covered or domed walls of the container in which the food is retained, and from which the generated or retained heat is dissipated.
Appliances by which food may be both cooked and served are known. These cooking/serving devices, like many other known cooking and serving devices, are typically complex, multi-element units having at times power supply means and circuitry for the operation of the cooking element and that, accordingly, are time consuming to manufacture and costly and require added time to use and clean up. Conventional cooking/serving equipment, as a whole, is also not structured to withstand a great amount of heat such as that which may be generated within a restaurant oven. Such heat may melt components of the appliances such as plastic handles or coated wires. Furthermore, the heat retained within these conventional cooking/servicing devices is typically insufficient to cook a wide range of food items, such as those that are typically considered to be “main courses”, for example such as a cut of meat or a filet of fish other than through known “slow cooking” methods.
As a group, known cooking devices are typically not designed to facilitate easy clean up of both the cooking surface and the external decorative surface. Known cooking devices, serving devices, and cooking/serving devices are not of a uniform shape and size to permit the devices to be stored efficiently side by side and/or stacked.
A demand therefore exists for a system and methods utilizing a simplified apparatus by which food may be cooked and served through the application of non-ambient heating of the entire apparatus. The present invention satisfies the demand.